Sawt Falasteen - Philippine senator arrested in flood control scandal

Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada's detention came nearly a year after revelations over massive corruption in flood control projects -- a matter with serious consequences in a country pummelled every year by major typhoons.

Several construction firm owners, government officials and politicians have been accused of pocketing funds from the projects, but this is the first time a sitting lawmaker was arrested over the scandal.

Estrada rejected the charges against him as "nonsense" and a ploy to get him to switch sides in a bitterly divided Senate.

A special anti-graft court ordered his arrest Monday, days after Estrada, son of former Philippine president Joseph Estrada, was charged with plunder, defined in the Philippines as large-scale corruption.

Graft has long been a problem in the Philippines but the flood control case has stood out due to the sums involved.

A government prosecutor accused him of inserting flood control project allocations in the 2025 national budget that allowed him to amass a kickback of over 573 million pesos ($9.2 million).

Plunder is punishable by life imprisonment and defendants are not entitled to bail.

Estrada's co-defendants include former Department of Public Works and Highways secretary Manuel Bonoan, as well as local engineering officials.

In a brief statement to the press before surrendering to police at the senate premises, Estrada described the charges as part of an attempt to blackmail him.

"There were many offers to drop the charges against me, but I did not entertain them," he said. "What is at stake here is the independence of the senate," he said without elaborating.

Estrada is a member of a group of 13 senators who took control of the 24-member Senate in May, ahead of the trial of their ally, impeached Vice President Sara Duterte, next month.

One other member of that group, Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, the chief enforcer of the deadly drug war of the vice president's father, ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, went into hiding last month after the International Criminal Court ordered his arrest.

Both Dela Rosa and the elder Duterte are accused of the crime against humanity of murder. The former president was arrested last year and handed over to the Netherlands-based tribunal.

Dela Rosa and Estrada's absence from the Senate would prevent them from sitting as judges to the Senate trial of the younger Duterte, accused of graft, hiding unexplained wealth, and plotting to have former ally President Ferdinand Marcos assassinated.

Estrada was charged in 2014 with plundering millions of dollars meant for government development projects, but the court acquitted him a decade later.

cgm/pam/jm

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST